A Reluctant Innovator
Graeco-Arabic Astronomy in the Computus of Magister Cunestabulus (1175)
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12619792 |
|---|---|
| Authors | C Philipp E Nothaft (0000-0002-7454-8058, All Souls College, Oxford, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 24-54 |
| Publication date | 2017-03-22 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Early Science and Medicine (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1383-7427 • E-ISSN: 1573-3823 |
| Publisher | Brill (PUBLISHER • NL) |
| DOI | 10.1163/15733823-00221p02 |
| OpenAlex | W2598625566 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 1 |
This article is dedicated to the obscure Computus of Magister Cunestabulus (England, 1175), which offers a unique spotlight on the way the twelfth-century ‘Renaissance’ in mathematical astronomy impacted the Latin computistical tradition. Armed with an unusually broad array of sources newly translated from Arabic, among them Ptolemy’s Almagest , Cunestabulus applied his advanced knowledge in the service of traditional Latin learning and established Church doctrine, defending the non-existence of Antipodeans in the southern hemisphere as well as the astronomical foundations of the ecclesiastical computus . His intricate explanation of the error underlying the Julian calendar, which was based on the Arabic theory of the ‘access and recess of the eighth sphere’, makes for a technically sophisticated and conceptually intriguing case of Graeco-Arabic science being used for apologetic ends in twelfth-century Latin writing
Arabic · Art · Art history · Doctrine · Linguistics · Literature · Medieval Latin · Ninth · Physics · Ptolemy's table of chords · The Renaissance · Theology · Classics · Historical Astronomy and Related Studies · Historical Philosophy and Science · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History · Philosophy
| Highly cited | No |
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